The 21st annual Come Out With Pride parade and festival takes place this weekend in downtown Orlando. Planners call the event the largest of its kind in the southeast, with 230,000 people attending last year to watch the parade, engage with the event booths and entertainment around Lake Eola, and catch the nighttime fireworks.
The theme for this year’s family-friendly fest is We The People. It aims for a message of inclusivity that leaves room for all people to be their authentic selves and still be part of America’s fabric, explained Come Out With Pride Executive Director Tatiana Quiroga.
It’s meant to communicate to attendees that “they’re part of something so much bigger, that they’re not alone, that there are people, hundreds of thousands of people, that love them for who they are, and that they are welcomed and included and accepted for just being themselves,” Quiroga added.
Come Out With Pride has faced new headwinds this year. Quiroga said changing federal DEI policies and state-level decisions like removing the Pulse crosswalk feel like personal attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. And the organization says it’s taking a noticeable financial toll on the event itself.
“One of the biggest things that we're feeling is the economic impact [from] our partners…our large corporate partners to our small businesses,” said Quiroga. “We have a lot that did not return for various reasons. For so many larger corporations, their DEI budgets have been completely cut.”
For an organization that has only one paid employee – Quiroga – and is otherwise entirely volunteer-run, those losses hit hard.
“We did have to have some tough conversations of, like, where do we cut? If anything, we really tried our darndest not to, because every aspect of our festival and celebration is so intentionally created, that cutting it would then for us mean we're cutting a portion of the community, and we never wanted to do that,” Quiroga said. “If anything, we always want to make sure that people feel included and feel welcomed and accepted and this is a place for them. So, you know, we definitely tried to get as creative as we could when it comes to making sure that the costs added up!”
But she said the mission of Come Out With Pride feels more critical than ever. “It feels like the attacks towards us have been just like back to back to back to back,” said Quiroga.
“Before, there was legislation and threats of legislation, but now we're seeing real, live practices, of things that are intentionally trying to harm us,” she explained. “We can see the crosswalks being painted over, you know, we can see people being arrested for protesting those, and so that's where I think it's sitting in a very different way than it has in the past.”
